Apple's Deal With China Unicom Not Exclusive

chinaunicom

Last week we reported that Apple finally struck a deal with China Unicom to bring the iPhone to China. At that time, few details were known except that it was a 3-year deal and it was exclusive. As it turns out, only a portion of that statement was correct, and it definitely wasn't the latter portion. According to Dow Jones Newswire, Apple's deal with China Unicom is, in fact, not exclusive.

"I can confirm it is not an exclusive deal," Apple spokeswoman Natalie Harrison said in an e-mailed statement.

Harrison declined to say which other companies Apple is in talks with, but according to All Things Digital, it's probably China Mobile. Apple and China Mobile have been in talks before, but had been unable to see eye to eye on important issues such as revenue sharing. During China Mobile's quarterly earnings call on August 20th, however, CEO Wang Jianzhou said talks between the two companies continue.

China Mobile is currently the world's largest wireless carrier with over 415 million subscribers. That's a pretty huge piece of the pie that Apple is still missing out on, something that may be too hard to pass up.

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